Porous, absorbent materials are provided with adhesive on one side during the production, for example, of hygienic articles such as sanitary napkins and baby diapers. In particular, a liquefied hot melt adhesive is sprayed onto a web as it passes underneath the adhesive applicator. The material must be porous because it has to be absorbent, but because of this porosity, the adhesive penetrates to a greater or lesser depth into the material. In the case of highly porous materials such as nonwovens, this can lead to bleed-through; that is, the adhesive penetrates all the way through the web. This leads to considerable processing problems, such as the contamination of the pulleys and support rolls. The necessity of cleaning operations increases the cost of production, but in addition this bleed-through also brings with it the danger that the web material will stick to the rolls or other adhesive-contaminated parts of the machinery, which can lead to the rupture of the web.